"The town has a bricky look as you see it from the hill, that's one reason, I suppose, why it seems so modern. After all, the greater part of the inhabitants of Pompeii escaped alive. They fled at the first warning. When the eruption stopped for a while, many went back for their valuables, or because they thought it was all over, and there were some old and sick who, perhaps, couldn't be moved at first. All these two thousand were caught in the second fearful eruption. Casts of some of the bodies are in the little museum on the grounds, but I hardly looked at them, and, in fact, we spent very little time there because we had seen the same kind of things at Naples. This is a fearfully long letter, but I hope I shall find a longer one from you at Rome, where we go from Naples by the morning express to-morrow."

CHAPTER IX

When Irma awoke on her first morning in Rome, she felt that one of her real desires was gratified. She was in the city she most wished to see. Looking at her watch she found it was too early for breakfast, and she did not care to go down ahead of the others in this new, strange hotel. So, seated in an easy-chair, she tried to recall some of the incidents of her journey of the day before, the five hours' ride that had seemed long, on account of the heat. The country through which they passed had been interesting, though she had seen few of the picturesque peasants working in the fields that she expected to see on every side. In the distance, however, she had had glimpses of snow-clad mountains, and occasionally on a hill a monastery or castle, or even a small walled town.

Then across a vast plain to the right was the unmistakable dome of St. Peter's. Yes, she could write home that at the first sight of Rome her heart had beaten quicker. After the sunny ride from the station through crowded streets all, even the indefatigable Uncle Jim, had been tired, too tired, after unpacking, to do anything but rest, until at five o'clock they had gone to the large hotel near by for afternoon tea.

"This isn't Rome," Aunt Caroline had said, as they sat there over their tea and cakes, listening to the music. "It is the Waldorf-Astoria, and these people moving about are largely Americans. To-morrow we shall see Rome."

"To-day is to-morrow," murmured Irma, in her easy-chair, "and I wonder what we shall see first in Rome. I am sure I should never know where to begin."

Aunt Caroline decided for her. Then when they first set out, she would not tell her just what they were to see until they had mounted the steps of an old casino; after passing through a little courtyard,—all that remained of the once fine Rospigliosi garden.

"Look up," cried Aunt Caroline, as they stood in the large salon hung with pictures, and there on the ceiling, more beautiful than any reproduction, Irma saw the familiar Aurora, the godlike auburn-haired vision and the spirited horses: Apollo seen in a strong yellowish light, and the attendant hours in robes shading from blue to white, and from green to white, with reddish browns in the draperies of the nymph nearest him, and Aurora herself, a lovely figure, scattering flowers in his path.

In the beautiful gallery, with its carvings and paintings, there were other fine pictures, but as she went away Irma still remembered only the Aurora.

The warm sun beat on their heads as they re-entered their carriage. "The Roman summer has begun," said Aunt Caroline, "though it is only May. We must accustom ourselves now to a daily siesta and save our strength; but first for letters."

A rapid drive brought them to their bankers, opposite the Spanish Steps. Irma recognized the place immediately from pictures she had seen, and while Aunt Caroline went inside for letters, she ran across the piazza to buy a bunch of roses from one of the picturesque flower girls gathered on the lower steps. But when, on the house at the right-hand corner, she read an inscription stating that in this house John Keats had died, she immediately unfolded her camera. She was so interested in her photograph, that when she saw her aunt standing by the carriage she recrossed the street without the flowers.

"Here are letters for all of us," said Aunt Caroline, "even for Marion; two for him, the first he has had, poor boy!"

"Aunt Caroline," asked Irma, for the first time since they sailed venturing to put the question, "why do you say 'poor boy' when you speak of Marion?"

Aunt Caroline, who usually answered questions so quickly, was silent for so long that Irma wondered if her audacity had offended her. Then she replied gravely, "Marion has had a most unhappy experience. It is hard to say yet whether he is to be blamed or pitied. Until he is ready to talk about it, your uncle and I prefer not to speak on the subject, even with Marion himself. But when the right time comes, you shall know all about it."

With this Irma, for the present, had to be content. But she realized that the idle remarks of her acquaintance at Cava had some foundation in fact. At déjeuner Aunt Caroline gave Marion his letters, and Irma noticed that his face reddened as he looked at the envelopes, and that then he put them unopened in his pocket. This she thought a strange way of treating his first home letters. But then Marion was a strange boy.

Irma herself had impatiently torn open her own letters even while in the carriage, and had partly read Gertrude's before reaching her hotel.

"We miss you awfully," she wrote, "and Lucy and I hope you won't be so taken up with that other girl that you'll forget all about us."

"She hadn't received my Azores letter about Marion," mused Irma, "when she wrote that. I am sure I wish that Marion were a girl instead of such a queer kind of boy."

"You remember," continued Gertrude, "how jealous you used to be of Sally? Yes, you were, though you wouldn't admit it; well that's the way I feel about your Marian. But even if I am jealous, I do hope that you look better than when you left home, and that you are having a perfectly stunning time. I suppose you will be in Rome when you get this, and I wonder if you have seen the Queen—I mean Margherita. I have a photograph of her that I love, so don't dare come back without seeing her so you can tell me if she is like it. No matter if she hasn't invited you to call, just leave your card, and perhaps they will let you in accidentally. We miss you terribly at school. Until we are called up to recite we never know whether our translations are right. I wonder if you find the old inscriptions in Rome more fun than Cæsar. We've just had a week of early warm weather, and we girls have decided to let John Wall and George Belman fight for the head of the class."

"The letter sounds just like Gertrude," said Irma, as she finished, "and though it has no news, it makes home seem much nearer."

"Yet you sighed when you finished it; you mustn't let us think you are homesick," and Aunt Caroline patted Irma's shoulder, as they entered the house together.

"There's only one thing for to-day," said Uncle Jim, after déjeuner, as they waited for the carriage. "There are said to be three hundred and sixty-five churches in Rome, and if you intend to see them all, you must begin at once with the largest and most important."

"But I don't intend to see them all," expostulated Irma, "nor a tenth of them."

"Then you must begin with St. Peter's just the same. You have been in the Eternal City now nearly twenty-four hours without visiting St. Peter's. Such a thing is unheard of and will bring disgrace on us all. Ah, here's the carriage, and your reform will begin."

"Talk of floods in the Tiber," cried Irma, as they drove along the bank of the historic stream. "A little river like that could never do any damage. It could not be energetic enough to overflow its banks, especially when it's so fenced in."

"Even in modern times the embankment has sometimes failed to keep it in place," said Uncle Jim, "and in its three miles of wanderings the yellow Tiber is sometimes hard to manage. There, there, doesn't that please you?" and Irma answered with an exclamation of delight, glancing beyond the bridge to the other side, where she had her first view of the Castle St. Angelo, Hadrian's tomb, the antique circular structure around which clusters so much history.

But their horses were quick, and their driver did not stop for a long view; and after a turn or two they were soon crossing the sunny, paved piazza in front of St. Peter's, with its obelisk and fountain.

"This is to be only the most general view. You must come again some day when there is a great ceremony, when you can see various dignitaries; now you are merely to get a first impression."

"A first impression!" cried Irma. "Can I put it into words? It's a tremendous building; I shall never see another as large, and yet, it doesn't seem too large. What a great man the architect was!"

"I have been reading up a little to-day," said Marion, "so things are fresh in my mind. I won't pretend I'll remember them to-morrow, but it's true that this is not the first church on the spot. In the beginning there was a circus of Nero's here, where that beautiful emperor was in the habit of torturing Christians to death. There's a tradition that St. Peter himself was burned here, and so Constantine built the first St. Peter's over the spot. Perhaps we can go down into the tomb to-day."

"But this isn't Constantine's church?" There was a decided note of interrogation in Irma's voice. Perhaps it would have been better for her not to ask the question, for Marion's reply was in the nature of a snub.

"Any one can see that this St. Peter's is comparatively new. It was begun by Julius II in the first part of the sixteenth century, and Bramante probably made the original plans."

"Why, I thought Michelangelo——"

"Yes, my dear," interposed Uncle Jim, "in the end Michelangelo did come to the rescue of the first plan. For after Bramante died, leaving the building far from completed, some of his successors made changes that affected the beauty of the building. I believe the dome was largely the result of Michelangelo's skill."

"It took long enough to finish it!" exclaimed Marion, who had been looking at his guidebook. "It was not consecrated until 1626, more than a hundred years after Bramante's death."

"Just six years after the landing of the Pilgrims," added Irma.

"To compare small things with great," said Uncle Jim, with a laugh.

"Which is which?" asked Irma, and for the moment no one answered.

"Perhaps you don't care for guidebook information. But up to the end of the seventeenth century, St. Peter's had cost about fifty million dollars, and it now takes about eighteen thousand dollars a year to maintain it."

"The salary of one of our ambassadors for a year," interpolated Irma. "Don't laugh," she cried, "that's the way I always try to remember things."

"Then," continued Marion, "perhaps you will remember the height of the dome, four hundred and thirty-five feet from the cross to the pavement, is twice that of Bunker Hill Monument."

"We are getting into the realm of useless knowledge," protested Uncle Jim, "and as this is but a bird's-eye view, we need only remember the beautiful proportions of the dome and the grandeur of the whole. Yet there are one or two things to see now. I must point out Canova's tomb of Clement XIII, and over there, by the door leading to the dome, you'll find Canova's monument to the last of the Stuarts. You ought to go over there and shed a tear or two, Irma, for you doubtless have the usual school girl sentimentality for the Stuarts. There are busts of the Old Pretender and his two sons."

"Guidebook information would probably be as useful as that of a misguided guide," said Irma, refusing to express herself about the Stuarts.

"Twenty-nine altars and one hundred and forty-eight columns," read Marion.

"Come," said Uncle Jim, "don't listen to him. I can show you something better worth seeing," and he led her to the nave, where he showed her in the pavement the round slab of porphyry on which the emperors were formerly crowned.

"Why, Charlemagne, of course," began Irma, and then she reddened. For Marion was standing near, and she suddenly realized that Charlemagne had been dead eight hundred years before St. Peter's was consecrated.

"Oh, it was in Constantine's church that Charlemagne was crowned, but though this slab is older than the present St. Peter's, I doubt that he or his earlier successors stood on it, and best of all, I doubt that Marion can inform us," he concluded in a whisper.

When at last the four turned toward the door, Irma noticed the people about her more than she had on entering. Bareheaded peasants were walking about in groups; laboring men, who had stolen an hour from work, bowed before various altars. Tourists of all nations were studying mosaic pictures, sculptured tombs, or were gazing at the priests in rich vestments and the altar boys in one of the chapels where there was a service. Here an old woman hobbled along, and there was a mother with two or three awestruck children. There were two or three soldiers in uniform, and several long-coated priests, visitors evidently from outside Rome.

"It is the People's Church," said Aunt Caroline, "the church of the people of the whole world," she added. "There may not be as many languages as there are people in this large building, but I'll warrant a dozen nations are represented here."

The fifteenth century bronze doors of St. Peter's amused Irma, with their curious mingling of Christian and pagan subjects, Europa and the bull, Ganymede, as well as scenes directly from the scriptures. She had a chance to admire her favorite Charlemagne, whose statue on horseback and one of Constantine were on either side of the entrance.

"Over there," and Uncle Jim pointed to the left, "is the German cemetery, which Constantine originally filled with earth from Mt. Calvary, and made the first Christian burying ground. We have as little time for that to-day as for the sacristy with its treasures, or the chapels with their pictures and sculptures. There is just one other important thing to see before we reach our hotel. Wake up, cocchiere, here we are."

As they drove between the colonnades away from St. Peter's and then along the Tiber bank, Uncle Jim called their attention to the new Rome rising on every side.

"It is the Rome of the masses," he said. "Many of these tall apartment houses are occupied by people of very moderate means. And see that great public building across the river! It is as ugly as some of our own city halls."

Their coachman now took a turn through narrow streets, crowded with people, to Aunt Caroline's disgust. "There may be all kinds of diseases floating about here."

But hardly had her protest been heard, when they drove up in front of a portico that Marion recognized at once. "The Pantheon! We were thinking so much of the narrow streets that we did not see where we were."

"Yes," responded Uncle Jim, "the Pantheon. He brought us the shortest way. I suppose you know this is the only ancient building in Rome. Walls and vaulting are the same as in the time of Hadrian. It goes back even farther than Hadrian, for Augustus's son in law, Agrippa, founded the temple, dedicated probably to the gods of the seven planets. When paganism died, it had no use for many years until Phocas the Tyrant presented it to the Pope, and it was dedicated to the Christian religion in 604."

"You can't mention anything happening in our country just then," said Aunt Caroline, turning to Irma.

"I might, but I won't, though I do remember that this was several hundred years earlier than our Leif Ericson," she retorted. "Uncle Jim, you did very well, even though you had to turn to your notebook."

For a full minute Irma was silent as she looked around the vast interior. "I am afraid," she began, "I am afraid that I like it better than St. Peter's. In some way it seems grander."

"You needn't be afraid; older and wiser persons have been heard to say the same thing. A circular building is always impressive, and no interior in the world has finer proportions than this. In some ways it isn't what it once was. The bronze casings of part of the walls one of the popes once stripped off to make cannon for St. Angelo, and in the eighteenth century the beautiful marbles of the attic story above were covered with whitewash, but nothing can destroy the beautiful proportions."

"Don't tell us what they are," urged Aunt Caroline. "It would destroy half the effect to hear what it is in feet and inches."

"There's just one thing Irma ought to know, since she quite scorns a guidebook now. That open aperture in the centre of the dome that looks like a small hole is thirty feet across. It is the only way of lighting the building."

"What do they do when it rains?" asked Irma.

"Why, they let it rain."

"Marion," exclaimed Aunt Caroline, "if you are willing to repeat so aged and infirm a joke as that, you must be feeling better."

Marion glanced toward Irma, but she made no sign as to whether or not she, too, scorned the joke.

"Twenty-eight wagon loads of bones," she was saying.

"Yes, my dear, it was dedicated to Santa Maria ad Martyres, and naturally this was regarded as a more fitting place than the Catacombs for their final interment. Yet the sacredness of the place didn't prevent Constans II from stripping the gilt tiles from the dome to use in Constantinople. But now you are to look at only two tombs on your way out, this of Victor Emanuel, which is always covered with wreaths, and over there Raphael's tomb—only a passing glance at each—and notice the wonderfully beautiful marbles of the pavement. It would repay you sometime to study them, and the—run, my dear, ask your aunt to hurry," he concluded hastily.

"We shall have time for the Corso," said Uncle Jim, as they drove off.

But the Corso proved disappointing to Marion and Irma.

"It is neither wide nor long, and why people with fine carriages and footmen should enjoy driving here at the end of a pleasant spring afternoon I can't understand," complained Marion. "Why, it's so crowded that there's no particular pleasure in being here."

"That's why most people are driving here, to see and be seen; that's part of the fun of living for the idler Italians, and as they can't sit about in piazzas like their countrymen and women a few grades below them, exchanging nods from a carriage is the next best thing. And you can't deny that the shop windows are attractive."

"It's almost like driving for pleasure on Washington Street, in Boston," said Irma, scornfully, "only it's a little less crowded, and there are no surface cars."

"Though you speak sarcastically, young lady, just now I won't attempt to stand up for Il Corso," retorted Uncle Jim.

"It doesn't begin to compare with Fifth Avenue," said Marion.

"It doesn't pretend to, young patriot. I simply brought you here to do as the Romans do fine afternoons. Some day you'll drive on the Pincian at the fashionable hour, and after that I'd like to hear your American comparisons."

"But where in the world can you find a street short as Il Corso with more associations with great men? Over there's the house where Shelley wrote 'The Cenci,' and Goethe's home in Rome is not far away. A little off at one side you'll find Donizetti's house, and on the other Sir Walter Scott's, and just ahead of us is the Bonaparte Palace, where Madame Letitia spent her sad later years. You hardly have to turn out of your way to find the remains of old temples, and there in the Piazza is the Marcus Aurelius Column."

"Oh, it's inter—," but with the word unfinished, Marion put his hand to his hat as if to bow to some one in a passing carriage. He did not really bow, however, and the others noticed that he reddened deeply.

"That looked like the fairy godfather!" cried Irma.

"Whom I consider a myth," responded Uncle Jim.

But Marion said nothing.

Irma's first week in Rome seemed to pass almost as quickly as her first day. Though she had been sightseeing constantly, she still had not seen the Colosseum, the Forum, or the Vatican treasures. Each day was not long enough. In the morning she usually visited some gallery with her aunt. But in the warmer hours, from twelve to three, they rested. Some object of interest and a drive took the later afternoon, and by evening all were too tired to do anything but sit about and compare experiences with one another or with their hotel acquaintances.

"I haven't forgotten your advice," wrote Irma in a long letter to her mother, "to remember clearly at least one or two things from each gallery. In the Borghese there is Canova's beautiful statue of Pauline, Napoleon's sister, and Titian's Holy and Profane Love, and in the Colonna that enormous ceiling painting—I almost broke my neck looking up at it—of the Battle of Lepanto, where some Prince Colonna fought, and some wonderful ivory carvings, one of them, in a few square inches, shows all the figures of Michelangelo's Last Judgment. Then in the Doria is Velasquez' Pope Julius X, in his red robes, and some Claude Lorraines that I liked.

"Then I loved Domenichino's Sybil, in the Borghese, and I can never forget the Saint Sebastians I have seen. It may be wicked to laugh at a martyr, but it is almost wickeder for artists to make a good man look like a pincushion stuck full of arrows. The Doria Palace is the handsomest of all, with its gilded furniture and fine ceilings and polished floors. How gorgeous it must have looked when a ball was given there in the old days. I'd like to have seen the private apartments and the Colonna gardens. They say it was from a building in the Colonna Gardens that Nero watched Rome burning. On certain days these galleries are free, but generally you pay admission to a regular ticket taker in a gilt-banded cap. I wonder if the princes who own these palaces make money by showing their pictures, or if public spirit leads them to open their houses.

"One day Marion and I went to the Lateran where the popes lived before they had the Vatican, and please tell Tessie that the first thing we looked at was the Scala Sancta, or Holy Stairs, that they say were in Pontius Pilate's house in Jerusalem, over which Christ once walked. On this account people must go up and down them on their knees. But it is only on Holy Week that many do this. There are twenty-eight marble steps, although all you can see, as you look through the narrow door, is the wooden covering that protects them. The Empress Helena, Constantine's mother, brought them here. Tessie used to be interested in these Holy Stairs on account of a picture in one of her Sunday-school books, and she will be glad to know I have seen them.

"Everything around the Lateran reminds one of Constantine. St. John Lateran has the site of a church he founded, and near it is the Baptistery where he was baptized. The font is green basalt, and there are beautiful porphyry columns and lovely gold mosaics on a blue ground.

"Opposite, in the piazza, is an obelisk Constantine brought from the Temple of the Sun at Thebes, and set up in the Circus Maximus. Three or four hundred years ago they found it in three pieces buried under ruins, and decided to place it here. Uncle Jim says there are more obelisks here than in all the rest of the world, and people who study hieroglyphs find Rome a better place than Egypt.

"Marion is good company, and often wishes to see just the same thing that I do, and then sometimes he doesn't; and I must say he always seems to suit himself. He knows a great deal. He has usually studied with private tutors and he has read everything. But he won't talk about his family. I don't even know whether he has any brothers or sisters.

"He was splendid the other day when we went to the Capitoline Museum, from the minute we began to walk up the broad stairs toward the statue of Marcus Aurelius. He pointed out the places where Tiberius Gracchus was slain, and not far away, though so long afterwards, Rienzi, too.

"Then he explained that though most of the buildings now on the Campodoglio were by Michelangelo, this had been a centre for public offices even under the first emperors. The Tabularium, where all old records were kept, is under the palace of the Senators. We had not time for it, but Marion had been there before, and he says it is almost the only building now left of the time of the Republic. Then we walked through the Capitoline Museum and I recognized many statues,—the Dying Gladiator and Hawthorne's Marble Faun and the busts of the Emperors. Marion says nearly all have been identified from coins, and are truer than the heads of philosophers and poets that we saw. Then there is the famous mosaic picture of the doves that shows even the shadows, which came from Hadrian's villa, like so many things in marble and porphyry I have seen this week.

"There are many relics from the ancient graves, gold bracelets and other ornaments, and old inscriptions. They are not always easy to read, but here is one to amuse the boys that Marion translated for me. I can't give the exact words, but it was the epitaph of a boy eleven and a half years old who had worked himself to death in a competition to recite Greek verses. After we had seen all we wished in the museums, Marion took me through a narrow way, the Via Tarpeia, and past the German Embassy and then through a garden, where we paid an old lady a fee, and then, but of course you have guessed it, we were standing on the famous Tarpeian Rock. We looked down from the rock into a rather poor and commonplace street, and I tried to imagine what it was like in the old, old times when this was the edge of Rome, and Tarpeia was killed there for betraying the city to the invaders.

"Without Marion I never could have found the Rock, and I don't believe Uncle Jim and Aunt Caroline would have taken the trouble to go there."

CHAPTER X

Marion said the last a trifle sheepishly, adding, "Of course I will do whatever you wish. But I am sure you will like my plan."

"Yes, provided you haven't the Catacombs in mind, or that awful church with bones and skulls for decorations."

"The Cappuccini; no, we won't go there."

"And you won't ask me to ride around Aurelian's wall on a bicycle?"

"No, though you'd find it great fun! I don't know anything I have enjoyed better. The towers are so picturesque and they were useful, too. I went up in one to see the little rooms inside the walls that the soldiers occupied, and the guard-rooms, up there more than forty feet. They certainly had a good chance to see the enemy at a long distance. If you and Aunt Caroline would drive some day, I'd point things out to you."

"Perhaps we will, but now—" Irma had taken out her camera. "Oh, I wish I could get a photograph, but I suppose they will run when they see what I want."

"They" made a picturesque group, slowly mounting the steps, a mother with babe in arms, a shawl thrown over her head, a half-grown girl in a faded pink gingham, and a little boy in a shabby velveteen suit and felt hat with a feather over his curls.

"The boy is probably an artist's model, dressed for effect. I am not sure about the others, but I can make them stand for you."

"Oh! Please!" Whereupon Marion stepped up to the woman, spoke a few words in Italian, and lo, they at once grouped themselves picturesquely in a spot where the sun fell in just the right way for a photograph. Irma took her place, snapped her camera, turned the key, took a second snap, in case anything should go wrong with the first and murmured, "Grazie, grazie," one of her few Italian words.

"Niente, niente, signorina," said the girl, who seemed to be the spokesman of the party, looking inquiringly at Marion.

Then almost instantly Marion dropped a small piece of silver in her hand.

"That's the way to get them to stand," he said laughing; "generally the smallest copper will fetch them."

"But you gave more."

"Oh, this was a group of four. I have noticed that little chap before, selling flowers. He's very amusing."

Soon Irma had returned her library book, and by various short cuts Marion led her to the Palazzo Cancelleria, near which the so-called Rag Fair is held every Wednesday.

They found a series of canvas booths, where a great variety of things was displayed. The sellers, more numerous than the buyers, praised their wares at the tops of their voices, if Irma or Marion even glanced toward them.

"I should call it a rummage sale, and things are rather rubbishy," said Irma.

At this moment a man thrust a pair of silver-mounted opera glasses in Marion's face, naming a ridiculously low price. With some difficulty, Marion shook him off. "Nothing would induce me to buy them."

"But they seemed very cheap."

"Yes, but that's the reason. I believe they were stolen."

"Oh, but would the police allow it?"

"Not if they knew it, but these people keep such things hidden. Perhaps other goods are stolen, too. There are some pretty things here."

"Aunt Caroline might find some old lace or embroidery that she'd like, but for my own part I am disappointed. However, we've seen the Rag Fair, and we can cross that off our list of sights."

Leaving the Fair and the voluble merchants, after a walk of a block or two Marion suggested that they go home by trolley. This pleased Irma, who had not yet ridden in the Roman cars.

When the conductor came for their fare, Marion gave a cry of surprise.

"What is it?" asked Irma.

"Well, it's worse than ridiculous. I have lost my purse. My last small piece of money was the silver bit I gave to the girl on the Spanish Steps. I know I had my purse then."

While they were talking Irma put her own little purse in Marion's hand, and he paid their fare.

"Let us go back to the Rag Fair," she said. "Some one there must have taken it. You know how they were jostling us."

"There'd be no good in going back. The person who took it would hardly return it. Besides there wasn't much in it, not more than two hundred liri."

"Two hundred liri, forty dollars." Irma rapidly transferred the sum to American money. Why, that was more than she had brought from home as extra spending money and for little gifts, and Marion could say it was nothing.

"It is worth trying to find," she suggested mildly.

"If there was any chance of finding it, but we'd only waste time. It's too near luncheon, and I'm anxious to carry out my afternoon plan."

"How strange Marion is!" thought Irma. "It doesn't disturb him in the least to lose money, and yet some little thing that no one can account for will give him a fit of blues for two or three days."

At three in the afternoon Irma came down to the hotel office, looking cool and comfortable in her simple pongee suit.

"I am awfully curious," she said, as Marion helped her into the carriage. "Aunt Caroline says she knows where we're going, but she wouldn't spoil your fun."

Marion only smiled, as he directed the coachman, "To the Villa Corsini," and the words conveyed little to Irma, beyond the fact that a villa was Italian for "park" and not for "country house," as in English. After a quarter of an hour through a part of Rome she did not know, at last they came to some rather poor streets, where people were lounging about their doors as if expecting something.

"I suppose they're not turning out just to see us pass."

"Who knows? Perhaps they have heard that we are distinguished American visitors."

Soon they turned in toward a park, before whose gate stood a number of carriages and automobiles.

"We shall be here an hour," said Marion in Italian, and the driver bowed comprehendingly.

Showing their tickets, they went up a broad avenue past fine trees and occasional flower-beds. "It's a garden party for some kind of a charity," Marion explained, "and I thought it would be fun to see some of the princesses and marchionesses who are running it. There was a long list of them in the newspapers yesterday."

"Yes, it will be fun," responded Irma, really surprised that Marion should willingly waste an hour on what might be called a society affair. That wasn't the way with most boys, and from what she had seen of Marion, she had not thought him fond of society.

Soon they came in sight of a long table, where many men and women were drinking and serving tea. Near it was a large marquee into which they looked as they passed, with a table handsomely spread and decorated with flowers and bright streamers. At one end of the apartment several handsome chairs were placed.

"Some special guest must be coming," said Irma, "but the lawn is good enough for me. Let us go toward those chairs under the trees." For a minute or two they watched the gay scene at the long table.

"It is evidently a family affair," said Marion. "Every one seems to know every one else. Those men are not bad looking, for Italians," he concluded.

"Many of the ladies are beautiful," responded Irma, "and what lovely gowns! I suppose they are in the height of fashion, but I should think they'd hate to trail them over the ground."

Presently a most attractive lady, whom Irma had especially noticed, approached them.

"Will you have your tea now?" she asked in English, with the slightest accent that showed it was not her native language.

"I will have it sent you at once," she continued, "and some cakes."

Without waiting for a reply, in a moment she had returned to the table, from which a young girl soon came bringing a tray with cups of tea and a plate of tiny cakes.

"Yes, she is expected at once," the young girl replied to some question of Marion's that Irma had not heard.

"The Queen, the Queen Margherita," cried Irma. "You are expecting to see the Queen."

"You are a good guesser," retorted Marion. "For when I read that Margherita had promised to attend this fête I thought it would be fun for you to come. I know your friend Gertrude has been anxious to have you see her, and there may not be another chance unless you should make up your mind to ask an audience."

"Hardly," replied Irma smiling, "and I do hope she will come."

Before the two had finished their tea, the groups at the large table moved forward, forming a semicircle near the marquee. The other strangers, who like themselves were at little tables under the trees, rose and moved toward the crowd. In a few minutes a little group came up the avenue from the gate. Irma's whole attention was fastened on the gracious lady in the centre, who leaned a trifle on her parasol handle, as she bowed to those who greeted her on each side.

"I should know her anywhere," cried Irma; "her face is as sweet as in the photographs I have seen. Look, they are kissing her hand."

Margherita paused a moment, as if to take in the whole scene before her. Irma noticed that although she was scarcely above middle height, in her soft black gown and wide black hat she had an air of grace and elegance that would have distinguished her, even among those who did not know that she was the widow of King Humberto.

"How pleased Gertrude will be that I have seen her!" she exclaimed, as Queen Margherita entered the marquee, attended by a number of those who had been in attendance upon the tables, "and it is all owing to you," she added, turning to thank Marion for his thoughtfulness. "As King Victor Emanuel and Queen Elena have gone to their country place, we are not likely to see any other royalties in Italy. But now I can write home that I have seen Queen Margherita."

A little later, as Irma and Marion passed the marquee on their way to the carriage, they paused to glance within, where Margherita sat, talking with much animation, the centre of a circle of ladies.

"Well, young people," said Uncle Jim at dinner that evening, "you have had a giddy day, with rag fairs and fêtes and things of that kind. To-morrow we return to hard, earnest sightseeing, the Borgia apartments at the Vatican and the Vatican Library. Your aunt wishes you to go while her cold lasts, so she has a reasonable excuse for not travelling the several miles necessary to see these things."

"Fortunately I am strong," said Marion, "and Irma seems equal to any amount of walking."

"I'm not sure," Irma protested, "that I wish to see more in the Vatican. I enjoyed the sculptures the other day, and the paintings in Raphael's Stanze. Perhaps I am wrong, but I would almost like to leave Rome without seeing the rest of the Pope's palace. Just now I recall clearly all the frescoes: the School of Athens and the Borgo, and Parnassus and the others, and then the Ascension in the gallery, with that wonderful yellowish light. I am contented to remember nothing else of the Vatican."

"Oh, that will never do, the largest palace in the world, with a thousand different apartments, covering thirteen and a half acres, and you wish to remember it by a few frescoes and one large painting!"

"The greatest frescoes in the world. I've heard you say that yourself."

"Oh, yes, but the treasures of the Vatican are all great, and you must have a chance to judge between what you've seen of Raphael and what you will see of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. Those popes of the Middle Ages were wise in their day, especially after Nicholas V, in 1450, who decided to make the Vatican the most imposing palace in the world by bringing under one roof all the papal offices. Since then the building has been constantly enlarged and improved. But now only a small part is occupied by the Papal Court. Certain days and hours most of the Vatican treasures are shown to visitors. If you could spend all your time there for a week, you would not have seen half."

Next day Uncle Jim decided not to go with the young people to the Vatican, and so again Marion was Irma's guide.

"I am less afraid of the Swiss guards than I was the first day," said Irma, as they passed the Pope's soldiers in their brilliant red and yellow uniforms, on their way to the Scala Regia.

"Oh," responded Marion, "they wouldn't dare touch a visitor. Just wait a moment, I've forgotten exactly where we go first."

So they waited, while Marion turned the leaves of his guidebook, and then he felt a hand on his shoulder, and heard in Italian a very positive "Move on." He looked into the frowning face of a Swiss guard, and without further ado he moved rapidly up the broad staircase.

"There," said Irma, when out of hearing of the soldiers. "What did I tell you? They might have done something terrible. You know we are not in Italy now. The Vatican is the Pope's country."

"And the Pope is one of the best-hearted men in the world. Why, actually you are trembling! I suppose they have rules to keep people moving, but they wouldn't dare harm an American."

Irma, however, was disturbed by this incident, and was not sorry a few minutes later to find herself one of several in an anteroom waiting the guide to take them through the library.

"A library!" she exclaimed, when they had entered the vast hall, "but where are the books?"

"In these glass cases—listen to the guide."

Not until the end of their tour of the great hall did they learn that the library, in the ordinary sense of books and manuscripts available for students, was not open to ordinary visitors. The so-called library through which the guide led them was high vaulted, and more than two hundred feet long, with painted ceiling, floors of marble mosaics from ancient temples and baths, and exquisite marble columns also from ancient buildings. In the end they saw some books worth seeing: the oldest Bible in existence, a manuscript of the fourth century, and an old second century Virgil. Of later times there was a volume of Henry VIII's love letters to Anne Boleyn, and many exquisitely illustrated manuscripts, among them a Natural History illuminated by Raphael and his pupils.

"I wish he'd cut it short," said Marion, as the guide gave long descriptions of each manuscript that he pointed out in its case, or in the drawers that he sometimes unlocked.

"I rather enjoy what he says about the manuscripts as you translate it for me," responded Irma, "but he need not describe every present given to every pope. Vases are vases, and we know all these things were presents to one pope or another. They are all costly and some are beautiful. But I am getting tired."

It would not have been possible, even had they dared try to hurry the loquacious guide. Before they left the hall Irma almost forgot her fatigue in looking at the ancient paintings, inscriptions, and other relics of early Christians. Again, as at the Lateran, she sighed deeply at the pathos of the little things brought from the Catacombs, combs and small toilet articles, little brooches, and other pieces of simple jewelry.

"You are really tired!" exclaimed Marion, as they passed through the glass door out of the hall. "But in the Sistine Chapel you can sit down."

So it happened that after Irma had looked into a mirror held under the ceiling, on which are painted Michelangelo's frescoes—the sibyls and the prophets, and the well-known Adam and Eve, Irma from a bench along the side looked with more or less interest at the paintings opposite her by Pinturicchio and other masters.

A girl of sixteen, however, is not expected to have the interest of her elders in old masters, as Irma frankly acknowledged.

"Of course I know the Last Judgment of Michelangelo's is a great altarpiece, but I do not care to look at it longer. I'm very glad, though, that you brought me to the Sistine Chapel. When I read about the great church ceremonies in which the Pope takes part, I can imagine the crowd here, and the Pope in the centre and——"

Before Irma had finished speaking, from behind a wooden partition that screened some men repairing the mosaic pavement, one of the workers stepped out, and with a finger of one hand on his lips, lifted the other on high with one finger significantly extended. When he saw that he had gained Marion's attention, he held up a small object, as if he wished Marion to examine it. Then Marion went forward, and the man put the object in his hand.

"Cheap enough for a franc," said Marion, displaying a small octagon of mosaics, green, red, and white.

"Why it's the same pattern as the pavement there."

"Of course, that's why I bought it," he replied, "as a souvenir of the Sistine Chapel."

"But ought you to take it?" asked Irma. "Had he the right to sell it?"

An expression of anger crossed Marion's face.

"Do you think I would do what is not right? Come," he continued, "we ought to be on our way out."

Then he strode on, keeping far enough ahead of Irma to prevent conversation. "He is certainly like a spoiled child!" she thought, "and I fancied we were getting on so well together."

The drive back to the hotel was rather silent, as well as hot. "In our hottest weather it is never like this," thought poor Irma. She was glad enough to reach the shelter of the cool hotel.

"Did you see where the papal dominions end and Italy begins?" asked Uncle Jim at déjeuner.

"No? Then you didn't look in the right place. There is one window from which the guide could have shown you a soldier of the Pope's on guard, while at a short distance a sentry from the Italian army is pacing up and down."

"From one or two windows I caught sight of the beautiful Vatican gardens," Irma replied, "and even if the Pope is a prisoner, he must find a great deal to enjoy in his walks."

"If he is a prisoner," began Uncle Jim.

"He is certainly a voluntary prisoner," said Aunt Caroline, "but the subject is too large a one to discuss now."

Marion was silent, evidently sulking. But Aunt Caroline understood him, for when he left the table without a word she made no comment.

CHAPTER XI

"Irma turning pessimist," cried Uncle Jim. "But the town isn't the whole of Tivoli. Villa d'Este is charming enough, unless it has changed since my day, and then there's the road to Hadrian's villa!"

Marion took neither one side nor the other in the discussion. He had talked to Irma little enough since their Vatican visit a day or two before. Yet he was always polite, and she judged from the past that his sulkiness would not last long.

The drive to the Villa d'Este was short, and as she stood on the terrace looking over the tops of the pointed cypresses, Irma admitted that this view alone was worth seeing.

"Ligorio, whom Cardinal Ippolito d'Este employed to construct this villa, was certainly an artist," said Aunt Caroline, "and I am sure it is true that there are few finer Renaissance villas in Italy."